Puzzle games!! Arrghh!! But don’t fear, SAM owner. Don’t throw out your SAM out of the window to the disbelieving crowds below. For this duel compilation is in fact (dare I say it!) original! Well, one of them is and the other is QUITE original, never the less. This compilation has been out and about for absolutely ages and ages, but is back again in the public eye - and how! The first thing to strike you is the “slow loading” system, which I was guarenteed by David Ledbury to be reliable (but ending up putting a HUGE bug in Craft). Craft is the first of the two game pack, and simply presents you with 80 levels of twisted circuit tiles, which you must rearrange into a complete circuit, and speed you off to the next level. This is all done in a time limit, though. The game is written by ESI (yeah!!). From what I have seen so far (until that reeeaallllyyy nasty bug came up in Craft) the game is certainly presentable! The graphics are more than functional (though what else can you do with tiles?) and the music is quite nice, too. The difficulty curve is that so you can learn from your mistakes, and keep this “vital” information all ready for the next level.

The other game on this compilation is the completely original one of the pack, entitled Snakemania. Basically, the game is based on the golden oldie, Snake. Snake, if you can remember that far back, was set on a green field. You were controlling a snake, eating mushrooms and consequently, getting more and more longer. Meaning that your body was becoming a hazard, not just the four walls which surrounded the field.

Snakemania, on the other hand, crosses this oldie with another oldie - Pacman, making the game original (unheard of in the Coupe puzzle fraternity.) and immensely playable. There are 40 odd mazes which you have to negotiate, with your snake growing bigger with every pill you consume. The levels can become quite infuriating at times, but not as much that you take out the disk and bite holes in it! The difficulty curve is incredibly reasonable, but should be more suited to the older puzzler than the younger - this is a forward thinking job!

Graphics are, again, more than functional, and complement the rather stylish music that happens in the background. Unfortunately, the duffer with this one is that there is no password system (compared to Craft’s rather adequate password system) so you’ll have to play through all those levels to reach the ending. Arrgggh! So, as a whole, this is a worthwhile purchase for you to treat your Coupe with. Two nicely pleasent and relaxing puzzlers to get your teeth into (you can also buy them separately, folks!). Hang on! Dave has just had a word with me on the phone! If you have a bugged game, try typing in on Craft’s password system… 360995. Ta!

Area

Score

Graphics

70%

Playability

88%

Sound

78%

Lastability

80%

Overall

79%

Trivia:

Craft was originally to have been published by SamCo’s software wing, Revelation, and a demo appeared on issue 5 of the Newsdisk.

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Megademo: Stupid Pointless Cool You could have spent all that time writing a game! Oooh, interesting, I wonder how they did that? Wow, I never knew my Sam could do that! Meh, that's not as good as Lyra III...